18 In the third year of Elah’s son King Hoshea’s reign over Israel, Ahaz’s son Hizkiyyah (Hezekiah) became king of Yehudah. 2 He was twenty-five when he became king and he reigned from Yerushalem for twenty-nine years. (His mother was Zekaryah’s daughter Abi.) 3 He did what Yahweh had said was correct behaviour like his ancestor King David had done. 4 He demolished the hilltop shrines and shattered their pillars, and he cut down the Asherah poles. He crushed the bronze serpent that Mosheh had made, because the Israelis had named it ‘Nehushtan’ and had been offering incense to it until then.[ref] 5 Hizkiyyah fully trusted in Israel’s God Yahweh, and no other king was like him among all the kings of Yehudah that either preceded or followed him. 6 He relied completely on Yahweh—not turning away from folowing him, and he obeyed the instructions that Yahweh had commanded Mosheh. 7 So Yahweh helped him and he was successful in everything he did. He rebelled against the Assyrian king and refused to submit to his demands. 8 He attacked and defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders—both the smaller towns and the fortified city.

9 Then in the fourth year of King Hizkiyyah’s reign (it was the seventh year of Elah’s son Hoshea’s reign over Israel), the Assyrian King Shalmaneser had attacked Shomron (Samaria) and besieged it. 10 They had finally captured the city after three years. That was the sixth year of Hizkiyyah’s reign over Yehudah and the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign over Israel. 11 So that was when the Assyrian king had exiled the people of the northern kingdom of Israel to Halah and to Havor along the Gozan River, and to the cities of the Medes. 12 That happened because they didn’t obey their God Yahweh, but instead they broke the agreement with him—everything that Yahweh’s servant Mosheh had commanded. They didn’t take notice of it and they didn’t obey it.

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